Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Breaking: Man paid by oil companies says no rush on alternative fuels

I wish the New York Times elaborated a bit on "energy consultant" as this Michael Lynch guy's title. He's not an MIT professor whom policy-makers consult on energy matters, he's a professional consultant to energy companies.

I'm not a hardcore "peak oil" guy, and I was hoping to be reassured by this flack's arguments against it, but they're laughably thin. Basically, technological wizardry is going to come up with a way to cost-effectively access the unconventional oil plays that producers have had to resort to, so $30 a barrel oil will be back to stay soon. Not buying it.

The last graf makes abundantly clear what this guy's motives are, too. Rather than focusing on his theoretical point (i.e. Peak oil is bunk), he tells us the country can't afford any more alternative energy "schemes," what with the recession and all:

This is not to say that we shouldn’t keep looking for other cost-effective, low-pollution energy sources — why not broaden our options? But we can’t let the false threat of disappearing oil lead the government to throw money away on harebrained renewable energy schemes or impose unnecessary and expensive conservation measures on a public already struggling through tough economic times.

Oh he's an "energy consultant," all right. The API pays good money for credentialed academics to write stuff like this.